School administrators hate controversy and will often discourage teachers from discussing hot topics in their classrooms at all. Teachers routinely get fired or reprimanded for opening discussion in their classroom about ideas that some may take issue with. Teaching subjects like art, literature, theater, and even history and science, can be fraught with difficulty, as teachers navigate minefields of potentially offensive ideas and images. And since today’s teachers often have less protection than teachers in the past, allowing controversy into the classroom can come with truly nightmarish consequences.